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Negative Space
A gem of a debut novel about a young mother navigating the instabilities of teaching, parenting, and marriage in the wake of the pandemic. With deadpan humor and a keen eye for the strangeness of our days, Negative Space follows a week in the life of a part-time high school English teacher. At home, her two children, increasingly restless in the wake of the pandemic, ask constant questions that flit from the weirdness of television shows to casual conversations about mortality. Her husband, always on business calls with Hong Kong at odd hours, shows up for meals only occasionally. At school, her students seem increasingly disconnected, and some put worrying details of their lives into their creative writing assignments. And then there’s the possibly inappropriate interaction she thinks she saw between her boss and a student. . . . Filled with sly observations about our off-kilter days, Negative Space is a witty and resonant novel about the challenges of motherhood, the question of what we owe the people around us, and the search for normalcy in a fractured world.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2024
26 people are currently reading
6191 people want to read
About the author
Gillian Linden
5 books28 followersGillian Linden received her MFA from Columbia University. She is a 2011 winner of the Henfield Prize for fiction. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 148 reviews
July 31, 2025
i love books about women having mental breakdowns.
and this was kind of that, but what it mostly was was very, very good.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
it's a brilliant exploration of womanhood, of what it means to mother and to work and to try to do your moral best and look around at everyone else and be unconvinced they're doing any of it — and for that worry to extend so far you wonder if you're actually doing any of it yourself.
this encapsulation of a few days in one ordinary life totally riveted me. i loved the protagonist's children, and while i wish a few more things were fleshed out — the husband, the babysitter, the ending — all in all this felt like drinking a cool glass of water.
bottom line: so refreshing.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
and this was kind of that, but what it mostly was was very, very good.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
it's a brilliant exploration of womanhood, of what it means to mother and to work and to try to do your moral best and look around at everyone else and be unconvinced they're doing any of it — and for that worry to extend so far you wonder if you're actually doing any of it yourself.
this encapsulation of a few days in one ordinary life totally riveted me. i loved the protagonist's children, and while i wish a few more things were fleshed out — the husband, the babysitter, the ending — all in all this felt like drinking a cool glass of water.
bottom line: so refreshing.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
February 5, 2024
I don't know if I have ever read a book like Negative Space. Absolutely enthralling! Linden pulls you in with her sparse and deadpan writing. As a teacher, I certainly enjoyed and appreciated her look at school bureaucracy.
Negative Space is a week in the life of an part time English Teacher working at a private school. The teacher witnesses a potentially controversial action and is forced to make decisions. It is truly a slice of life story and so well written that you will still be thinking about this school and the event many days later (as I am). This short book, almost a novella, is perfect for lovers of contemporary lit, books about school and of course the slice of life story telling style.
#negativespace #gillianlinden #whnorton #netgalley
Negative Space is a week in the life of an part time English Teacher working at a private school. The teacher witnesses a potentially controversial action and is forced to make decisions. It is truly a slice of life story and so well written that you will still be thinking about this school and the event many days later (as I am). This short book, almost a novella, is perfect for lovers of contemporary lit, books about school and of course the slice of life story telling style.
#negativespace #gillianlinden #whnorton #netgalley
April 27, 2024
At risk of sounding like one of those folks who starts a presentation with, “According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ______ is defined as …”
…after finishing this book, I revisited various definitions of “negative space” as a term of art, with the goal of helping me succinctly articulate some themes of this enigmatic novella.
While some of the definitions I found were phrased more evocatively than others, the core meaning remained consistent: negative space in art is the empty surrounding space around and in between the subject(s).
In the novella, Negative Space is also the name of the student literary journal at the school where the protagonist works as a part-time English teacher. As readers of the book will understand, the term also describes a troubling interaction the protagonist observes between a student and a school administrator during a meeting of said literary journal - as well as the ensuing debate amongst school leadership about what occurred.
The idea of negative space continues to serve as a relevant metaphor throughout the novella because this is very much a story about the anxieties and burdens of caregiving - both professionally and personally, and particularly in the wake of Covid - and contending with the surrounding larger and smaller aspects and risks of daily life that we cannot control and from which we cannot protect those subjects in our care, especially the younger ones. When the protagonist isn’t teaching, she is parenting - her collective responsibilities extend to youth across pretty much the full range of the childhood developmental stages continuum - and she seems constantly anxious about her own fallibility and aware of the inevitability of falling short at all of it.
As the protagonist subtly alludes toward the end of the novel, the concept of negative space also describes the sacrifice or obliteration of self and identity that occurs when fully immersed in a personal and/or professional caregiving role. This is especially true when one is engaged in such a role in loneliness and isolation, as is the protagonist: her husband is disconnected, self-absorbed, and even actively unhelpful, as are her school colleagues, and waning Covid has left its legacy of additional disconnection and distance between.
Just as negative space both envelops and is defined and shaped by the subject, empty in and of itself - the protagonist, like all caregivers, is not the subject of her own life. The protagonist is defined by the existence of her subjects.
Was this novel so incredibly slice-of-lifey that it was almost too much so even for me, who typically really likes this type of “nothing happens/plotless” thing? - yes.
Was it absolutely way too short and abrupt in its ending even for this genre and again for me? - yes.
Was it an unneeded literary reminder of Covid that I can usually fully do without? - yes.
Did I think this novel and its writing conveyed a masterful description of the beautiful and painful minutiae and magnificence of daily and interior life, like a Vermeer painting? - yes.
…after finishing this book, I revisited various definitions of “negative space” as a term of art, with the goal of helping me succinctly articulate some themes of this enigmatic novella.
While some of the definitions I found were phrased more evocatively than others, the core meaning remained consistent: negative space in art is the empty surrounding space around and in between the subject(s).
In the novella, Negative Space is also the name of the student literary journal at the school where the protagonist works as a part-time English teacher. As readers of the book will understand, the term also describes a troubling interaction the protagonist observes between a student and a school administrator during a meeting of said literary journal - as well as the ensuing debate amongst school leadership about what occurred.
The idea of negative space continues to serve as a relevant metaphor throughout the novella because this is very much a story about the anxieties and burdens of caregiving - both professionally and personally, and particularly in the wake of Covid - and contending with the surrounding larger and smaller aspects and risks of daily life that we cannot control and from which we cannot protect those subjects in our care, especially the younger ones. When the protagonist isn’t teaching, she is parenting - her collective responsibilities extend to youth across pretty much the full range of the childhood developmental stages continuum - and she seems constantly anxious about her own fallibility and aware of the inevitability of falling short at all of it.
As the protagonist subtly alludes toward the end of the novel, the concept of negative space also describes the sacrifice or obliteration of self and identity that occurs when fully immersed in a personal and/or professional caregiving role. This is especially true when one is engaged in such a role in loneliness and isolation, as is the protagonist: her husband is disconnected, self-absorbed, and even actively unhelpful, as are her school colleagues, and waning Covid has left its legacy of additional disconnection and distance between.
Just as negative space both envelops and is defined and shaped by the subject, empty in and of itself - the protagonist, like all caregivers, is not the subject of her own life. The protagonist is defined by the existence of her subjects.
Was this novel so incredibly slice-of-lifey that it was almost too much so even for me, who typically really likes this type of “nothing happens/plotless” thing? - yes.
Was it absolutely way too short and abrupt in its ending even for this genre and again for me? - yes.
Was it an unneeded literary reminder of Covid that I can usually fully do without? - yes.
Did I think this novel and its writing conveyed a masterful description of the beautiful and painful minutiae and magnificence of daily and interior life, like a Vermeer painting? - yes.
June 21, 2024
3.5. A nothing book, but the nothingness is the point. As the title suggests, the focus in Negative Space is—you guessed it—the negative space, the minutiae of life, the details that surround the big moments, or more substantial events of life.
Set over the span of a week, our narrator details her life as a part-time teacher at an elite NYC school and a mother to two young children. The details around COVID are present: masks, Zoom, etc., but beyond small mentions here and there, it’s not a topic explored at length. Likewise, small details pop up that illuminate the fractured state of the narrator’s marriage, but they all seem to be dancing around the central question of why and how it got to this point. And the central driving force of the book is a small detail, a nudge or a nuzzle, that our narrator believes she witnessed between her boss and a younger student. Is it nothing, an accidental bump of the head, or is this small moment a piece of a larger picture?
There’s a reoccurring instance where our narrator is speaking with different colleagues about events surrounding student’s home lives and small details are dropped or gossiped about, “I shouldn’t say anything” or “don’t repeat this” are often said, and yet we are never really privy to the central event, to what actually happened.
Negative space is made sense of when viewed in conjunction with its counterpart. Left on its own, interpretations abound. The continual focus on the surrounding details, rather the main event or the subject, forces the reader to take an active part in making meaning of this book as we attempt to define what has been left undefined.
So mired as it is in the nothingness and the details that seem important and urgent one week and are completely forgotten the next, I enjoyed reading this but expect the memory of it will not linger long. It remains a thought provoking debut.
Set over the span of a week, our narrator details her life as a part-time teacher at an elite NYC school and a mother to two young children. The details around COVID are present: masks, Zoom, etc., but beyond small mentions here and there, it’s not a topic explored at length. Likewise, small details pop up that illuminate the fractured state of the narrator’s marriage, but they all seem to be dancing around the central question of why and how it got to this point. And the central driving force of the book is a small detail, a nudge or a nuzzle, that our narrator believes she witnessed between her boss and a younger student. Is it nothing, an accidental bump of the head, or is this small moment a piece of a larger picture?
There’s a reoccurring instance where our narrator is speaking with different colleagues about events surrounding student’s home lives and small details are dropped or gossiped about, “I shouldn’t say anything” or “don’t repeat this” are often said, and yet we are never really privy to the central event, to what actually happened.
Negative space is made sense of when viewed in conjunction with its counterpart. Left on its own, interpretations abound. The continual focus on the surrounding details, rather the main event or the subject, forces the reader to take an active part in making meaning of this book as we attempt to define what has been left undefined.
So mired as it is in the nothingness and the details that seem important and urgent one week and are completely forgotten the next, I enjoyed reading this but expect the memory of it will not linger long. It remains a thought provoking debut.
February 11, 2024
This book is sparse, to the point that it feels unfinished -- the barest bones of the main character's thoughts and feelings, the most basic (and therefore dull) everyday struggles with young kids, standard stonewalling at work.
I think the author's trying to make the point that it's how many of us functioned during the pandemic -- just the basics, in a bit of a daze. But what was incredibly boring then is still incredibly boring now. And perhaps many mothers can identify with the mundanity and isolation of the main character's home life in a way that doesn't make it monotonous as hell to read, but that wasn't the case for me.
I received this ARC from Norton.
I think the author's trying to make the point that it's how many of us functioned during the pandemic -- just the basics, in a bit of a daze. But what was incredibly boring then is still incredibly boring now. And perhaps many mothers can identify with the mundanity and isolation of the main character's home life in a way that doesn't make it monotonous as hell to read, but that wasn't the case for me.
I received this ARC from Norton.
December 9, 2024
Four and a half stars.
This moody novella was just the antidote for my reading slump. The first person protagonist is a part time English teacher at a private school. She has two young children and an emotionally distant husband and they're a couple of years into the Covid era. While the pandemic is woven into the background of the story, it's not really the subject. Instead, there's an anxiety amongst the characters, a tenuous fear of death, and a reckoning with moral choices. I loved the voice and it was easy to keep coming back. I only wish it had been longer.
This moody novella was just the antidote for my reading slump. The first person protagonist is a part time English teacher at a private school. She has two young children and an emotionally distant husband and they're a couple of years into the Covid era. While the pandemic is woven into the background of the story, it's not really the subject. Instead, there's an anxiety amongst the characters, a tenuous fear of death, and a reckoning with moral choices. I loved the voice and it was easy to keep coming back. I only wish it had been longer.
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December 3, 2024I love books about women having mental breakdowns because...same. 😭🤣
October 21, 2023
A quickly paced read with the kinds of small details that draw you in.. Gillian linden writes a full bodied read and does it WELL.
August 2, 2025
3.5 - one of the most upsetting things in the world is when children are betrayed not just once by an adult who abuses them but again by other adults who turn away from the mistreatment or abuse that they don’t want to confront. it is horrifying to become an adult and realize that adults are just people. idk if that’s supposed to be the takeaway from this book but that is what i am thinking about
June 26, 2024
I don't know why I loved it but I did. The main character, the writing style, it all just works. I loved the sparseness and space in the novel. Short, but with depth. Loved.
April 5, 2024
Edited to add: I cannot stop thinking about this book. It gets smarter every time I think about it and I think for that, I will add a star to my review.
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I liked this book fine, I’m just not sure it’s my genre.
That being said, Negative Space is like taking a few days in someone’s life, putting them under a microscope, and zooming in just the right amount to observe what happens. It’s a very real look at a few days in the life of a woman living her very real and very boring life 😂 I’m a teacher, and a mother so this book really hit home for me.
I loved how the author intertwined the two roles of the main characters life so seamlessly. It certainly reflects real life. I felt like I was reading someone’s journal honesty. I had to remind myself it was fiction.
I also loved how there were small nods to the main problem as the story progressed. The summary made me feel like it would be more focused on the trials of being a mother and a teacher through the pandemic, but the big problem was that the main character witnessed another teacher having a non-sexual intimate moment with a student. She reports it, and they attempt to gaslight her into thinking it’s nothing. She continues to think on it and subtly push it up the chain of command to report it dealing with the very real effects of what that means, and in the end she ultimately gets fired by the guy who was involved. That sounds so dramatic, but its written in a way that is so subtle and real.
___________________________________
I liked this book fine, I’m just not sure it’s my genre.
That being said, Negative Space is like taking a few days in someone’s life, putting them under a microscope, and zooming in just the right amount to observe what happens. It’s a very real look at a few days in the life of a woman living her very real and very boring life 😂 I’m a teacher, and a mother so this book really hit home for me.
I loved how the author intertwined the two roles of the main characters life so seamlessly. It certainly reflects real life. I felt like I was reading someone’s journal honesty. I had to remind myself it was fiction.
I also loved how there were small nods to the main problem as the story progressed. The summary made me feel like it would be more focused on the trials of being a mother and a teacher through the pandemic, but the big problem was that the main character witnessed another teacher having a non-sexual intimate moment with a student. She reports it, and they attempt to gaslight her into thinking it’s nothing. She continues to think on it and subtly push it up the chain of command to report it dealing with the very real effects of what that means, and in the end she ultimately gets fired by the guy who was involved. That sounds so dramatic, but its written in a way that is so subtle and real.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 25, 2024
I was intrigued by this deadpan style of writing until it made everything feel disjointed and detached. The “ambiguous and possibly inappropriate interaction” mentioned in the book jacket seems hardly any different from all the other non-events going on in the book. I spent the entire book waiting for something to happen, which is maybe the point but I wasn’t invested enough to care or not care.
June 7, 2024
The prose!
January 3, 2024
I really liked this! Written in a straight-forward, nonflowery-way, it follows a part-time English teacher through her week at the end of the school year. I thought it was a great look at an ordinary woman (who I related to in a lot of ways) getting through her week surrounded by the ridiculousness of kids and adults alike while trying to be an actual responsible "real person" in the post-COVID era. I really liked the bits of social commentary thrown in, the sort of fleeting thoughts I have throughout the week, without dwelling on any specific thing. The end of the book felt a little unsatisfying, but life goes on and that's just how it is.
You know how as a kid you think teachers are adults who know what they're doing? And when you become an adult and you have no idea what you're doing, you realize oh shit, the teachers didn't actually know what they were doing? I feel like that book kind of emphasizes that.
Since this was written in such a deadpan kind of way, the lack of descriptive language and conversational cues made some of the conversations sound stilted, in a way I couldn't really imagine normal conversations flowing. Also, for such a short book, there were a lot of named characters with specific roles and it was kind of difficult to keep track of who's who.
I borrowed this as an ARC from my local bookstore.
You know how as a kid you think teachers are adults who know what they're doing? And when you become an adult and you have no idea what you're doing, you realize oh shit, the teachers didn't actually know what they were doing? I feel like that book kind of emphasizes that.
Since this was written in such a deadpan kind of way, the lack of descriptive language and conversational cues made some of the conversations sound stilted, in a way I couldn't really imagine normal conversations flowing. Also, for such a short book, there were a lot of named characters with specific roles and it was kind of difficult to keep track of who's who.
I borrowed this as an ARC from my local bookstore.
April 17, 2024
This is an extremely short book. It is like a documentary on a week in the life of a young woman who is juggling multiple roles. She is a part-time English teacher, a mother to two very young kids and a wife to her always busy husband who is travelling a lot or now in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic working from home on his computer. This is not a pandemic novel, rather it deals with the new normal phase post the height of the pandemic where most people were vaccinated and had caught it and recovered yet masking was a norm and schools were still hybrid. Our narrator witnesses a troubling physical interaction between one of the students and a teacher to whom she generally reports. This causes her to raise an alarm. There is no real plot as such and the novel is more the study of the life of a contemporary urban working woman and deals with a host of nuances of contemporary life. It was interesting in its own way and an easy quick read.
Thank you Netgalley, W W Norton & Gillian Linden for the ARC.
Thank you Netgalley, W W Norton & Gillian Linden for the ARC.
January 20, 2024
ARC for review. To be published April 16, 2024.
This pandemic novel is the author’s debut. It covers the week in the life of a part time English teacher at a private school. She lives with her husband, Nicholas, who is always on a call to somewhere and her young children Jane and Lewis. She’s attempting to navigate a potentially compromising situation between a teacher who is her best friend at the school and a student.
Oh, I tried to like this book more, but the narrator’s world just felt so dead and airless to me. Perhaps that was the author’s intent, and if so, she succeeded admirably, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near a world so stifling. It was just to depressing, and, honestly, that isn’t even considering the pandemic aspects, which were lightly handled.
This pandemic novel is the author’s debut. It covers the week in the life of a part time English teacher at a private school. She lives with her husband, Nicholas, who is always on a call to somewhere and her young children Jane and Lewis. She’s attempting to navigate a potentially compromising situation between a teacher who is her best friend at the school and a student.
Oh, I tried to like this book more, but the narrator’s world just felt so dead and airless to me. Perhaps that was the author’s intent, and if so, she succeeded admirably, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near a world so stifling. It was just to depressing, and, honestly, that isn’t even considering the pandemic aspects, which were lightly handled.
September 7, 2024
This book just was. I think it would function better going in if it were tagged as a short story or novella. It’s the story of a week in the life of a woman, living in the “end” of Covid times, maybe late 2021 or 2022. Everything is fine yet nothing is. Her kids are fine yet a little neurotic. Her husband is fine yet consumed by Zoom calls for work and his plants. She is a teacher at a private school in NYC, where everyone is fine but no one is happy. I suppose it’s a meditation on the quotidian moments in life. The ones where everything feels fine & awful at the same time. This was a relatively painless reading experience and maybe is relatable in ways we don’t want it to be but I am not sure I needed to read it. It just was.
July 22, 2024
2.75. This book seemed to me like half of a story. Ambiguous endings are fine but this one almost didn't seem intentional.
August 7, 2024
my first foray into audiobooks.
the experience was interesting, since I was listening whilst doing a lot of busy work. it almost felt like I wasn’t actually processing anything, but I definitely know what happened… the narrator did slightly different voices which was intriguing to me. even more interesting was at first I was so caught off guard by audiobooks that I was almost convinced that this was an AI voice generated reading thing. anyway, onto the book itself.
I feel like a lot of modern books about women are very depressing. this lady is gradually losing her identity as her role as teacher and mom squeezes and squeezes and squeezes. at the end, she portrays her job as her one escape from home, and yet it didn’t even seem like she enjoyed her job. There were a few poignant scenes that felt like every day life and yet as I was sitting there practicing my excel shortcuts (alt + h + d + s to delete a sheet and alt + h + o + r to rename a sheet), I just felt so so so sad and heartbroken for her. it’s hard not to read modern books about modern women and wonder whether that will eventually become my life.
the experience was interesting, since I was listening whilst doing a lot of busy work. it almost felt like I wasn’t actually processing anything, but I definitely know what happened… the narrator did slightly different voices which was intriguing to me. even more interesting was at first I was so caught off guard by audiobooks that I was almost convinced that this was an AI voice generated reading thing. anyway, onto the book itself.
I feel like a lot of modern books about women are very depressing. this lady is gradually losing her identity as her role as teacher and mom squeezes and squeezes and squeezes. at the end, she portrays her job as her one escape from home, and yet it didn’t even seem like she enjoyed her job. There were a few poignant scenes that felt like every day life and yet as I was sitting there practicing my excel shortcuts (alt + h + d + s to delete a sheet and alt + h + o + r to rename a sheet), I just felt so so so sad and heartbroken for her. it’s hard not to read modern books about modern women and wonder whether that will eventually become my life.
September 19, 2024
What a debut novel. I don’t want to attribute this writing to ease, as it obviously was crafted very intentionally and well done, but it reads so deceptively easy. The life the main character leads makes you feel as if you’re slowly sinking into sand, acceptingly.
To me, this was a horror novel. I cannot wait to read more from this author. Delicate but precise language, excellent interwoven storytelling, all around great and short read.
To me, this was a horror novel. I cannot wait to read more from this author. Delicate but precise language, excellent interwoven storytelling, all around great and short read.
March 9, 2025
Through the magic of the library, I discovered this book and I'm very glad I read it. It has a sparse, concise style that gets across all the little foibles and anxieties of being human (and a woman especially) so well.
The ending was perfectly unsatisfactory.
CW: at least one instance of the F-word, anxiety, lying. The story is set during the COVID pandemic and centers around the possibility of a predatory teacher.
The ending was perfectly unsatisfactory.
CW: at least one instance of the F-word, anxiety, lying. The story is set during the COVID pandemic and centers around the possibility of a predatory teacher.
August 4, 2025
“What is the point of this?” is the phrase that would run through my head on a continuous basis while reading this book. Occasionally there would be a passage that mildly piqued my interest, just enough to keep me going, although the only reason I kept reading to the end was likely due to its relatively short 160 page length. Anything longer and I probably would have ditched it. Was going to give 2 stars until I reached the ending, which I hated even more than the rest of the book.
May 6, 2024
Smart, engrossing, quick-witted look at alienation and dread during Covid in short easily digestible vignettes. Written from the pov of the working mother of small children whose husband is essentially absent emotionally and physically, I was reminded of Jenny Offill’s recent books.
July 14, 2024
Negative Space is a meditation on exactly that. Gillian Linden has focused in on the moments between moments, and has found a dark humor in them. I don’t know that I’ve read anything like this. It is particularly sparse, but there is much that goes on despite its limited text. Every word here counts. I want to thank NetGalley for an ARC which I read half of and realized had expired when I went back to finish it. I ended up getting the audiobook, and started over. I thought the reader did a relatively good job but there were some inflections I read into the text that were done differently, and I think I enjoyed my own reading better for what’s that’s worth. My biggest complaint was that I wanted more! Looking forward to the next Gillian Linden novel!
May 13, 2025
Some of her introspections about motherhood or being a worrying person were relatable and honest, but I overall felt bored and learned a lot about people that I don’t care about. I also really didn’t like her husband, sorry Nicholas.
June 2, 2024
Short & not sweet! Slice of life! Almost too mundane to be enjoyed but so is day-to-day life so she's real for that.
June 4, 2024
Review under consideration for the September issue of the respected magazine World Literature Today.
June 13, 2024
Yikes, couldn't get into this at all. Thought I might at least be compelled because of the length - at around 160 pages, does that make it more of a novella? - but I mostly found this to mostly be a scattershot pandemic book.
July 1, 2024
A quick read but I'm left unsatisfied at my lack of knowledge of what actually happened during this book and what point the author was trying to make.
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October 14, 2024Loved it.
The main character talks about liking to read “day in the life” accounts/interviews of people, and that is sort of what this is.
The main character talks about liking to read “day in the life” accounts/interviews of people, and that is sort of what this is.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 148 reviews